Music: Marcos Valle — ‘Parabéns’
Air pollution is much worse than we thought
Vox reports: In the late 1960s, the US saw regular, choking smog descend over New York City and Los Angeles, 100,000 barrels of oil spilled off the coast of Santa Barbara, California, and, perhaps most famously, fires burning on the surface of the Cuyahoga River in Ohio. These grim images sparked the modern environmental movement, the first Earth Day, and a decade of extraordinary environmental lawmaking and rulemaking (much of it under a Republican president, Richard Nixon). From the ’70s…
Immunity studies provide ‘a bit of blue sky’ about protection from Covid-19, experts say
CNN reports: A recent batch of studies, many early stage and not yet peer reviewed, show that humans have a “robust” immune response to Covid-19 that may protect them from further infection, even if they had mild symptoms. How long that protection lasts is still unclear, but the studies indicate it could last for months. One leading immunologist says the findings provide optimism that people will not have to endure repeated coronavirus infections. It also provides evidence a vaccine might…
Postal Service backs down on changes as at least 20 states sue over potential mail delays ahead of election
CNN reports: Embattled Postmaster General Louis DeJoy reversed course Tuesday, saying that all changes being made to the Postal Service would be suspended until after the November 3 election, just as 20 Democratic states announced plans to file federal lawsuits. DeJoy said that some of the deferred decisions mean that retail hours at post offices will not change, mail processing equipment and blue collection boxes will remain in place and no mail processing facilities will be closed. At least 20…
Trump is ‘flooding the zone.’ It’s a form of modern censorship
Charlie Warzel writes: In the Trump era, news doesn’t break, it invades. It doesn’t respect nights or weekends. Many journalists live at the whim of President Trump’s Twitter feed. A rattled off Friday afternoon tweet from Mr. Trump about banning TikTok or a late night hint of an executive order means a weekend of wild goose chases around answering a fundamental question: Can he even do that? It’s not just journalists who feel this exhaustion. Over the last four years…
Former counterterrorism chief: Trump defeat may prompt right-wing terror attacks
Yahoo News reports: The former head of the National Counterterrorism Center said he would not be surprised if right-wing domestic terrorist groups stage attacks in the United States around this November’s presidential election. “It certainly wouldn’t surprise me, particularly if the administration loses,” said Russ Travers, who was the center’s acting director when he was fired by President Trump’s hand-picked acting director of national intelligence. Trump, who is behind in all national polls, has repeatedly claimed that the expected widespread…
Paul Manafort was a ‘grave counterintelligence threat,’ had repeated contact with Russian intelligence, Senate panel finds
The Washington Post reports: President Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman posed a “grave counterintelligence threat” due to his interaction with people close to the Kremlin, according to a bipartisan Senate report released Tuesday that found extensive contacts between key campaign advisers and officials affiliated with Russia’s government and intelligence services. In its nearly 1,000-page report, the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee found that Trump’s then-campaign chair Paul Manafort worked with a Russian intelligence officer “on narratives that sought to undermine evidence that…
‘Zombie’ microbes redefine life’s energy limits
Jordana Cepelewicz writes: Energy drives the planet; it’s the currency that all living things use to grow, develop and function. But just how little energy do cells need to get by? Sediment-dwelling microbes below the seafloor — which may outnumber the microbial cells found in the oceans themselves — are providing some surprising answers. The organisms not only challenge what scientists thought they knew about life’s energy needs, but hint at new ways of defining what life is and where…
Music: Emilio Santiago & Marcos Valle — ‘Disfarça E Vem’
Former senior Trump administration official endorses Joe Biden
Miles Taylor writes: After serving for more than two years in the Department of Homeland Security’s leadership during the Trump administration, I can attest that the country is less secure as a direct result of the president’s actions. Like many Americans, I had hoped that Donald Trump, once in office, would soberly accept the burdens of the presidency — foremost among them the duty to keep America safe. But he did not rise to the challenge. Instead, the president has…
Jared Kushner has become his father-in-law’s most dangerous enabler
Franklin Foer writes: When Kushner showed up for work on March 11, he was summoned by Mike Pence. The vice president had been designated by Trump to preside over the government’s response to the virus. With the economy on the verge of collapse, his efforts could hardly be characterized as a triumph. Now Pence dumped the problem on Kushner’s desk. As he grasped the magnitude of the challenge before him, Kushner is said to have felt an uncharacteristic jolt of…
Trump finalizes drilling plan for Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
The Washington Post reports: The Trump administration said Monday it will open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, a move that will allow oil and gas rights to be auctioned off in the heart of one of the nation’s most iconic wild places. Achieving a goal Republicans have sought for 40 years, the action marks a capstone for an administration that has ignored calls to reduce fossil fuel consumption in the face of climate change. The move will…
Rewriting the limits of presidential powers
CBS News reports: The power of the president is enormous – and this president is not bashful in describing powers that go well beyond simple declarations. In April, when discussing guidelines to be issued to governors about reopening states during the coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump said, “When somebody is the President of the United States, the authority is total, and that’s the way it’s got to be – it’s total.” There are, it’s true, some restraints on most presidential…
Can New York hold off a second wave of the coronavirus?
The New York Times reports: Health experts in New York City thought that coronavirus cases would be rising again by now. Their models predicted it. They were wrong. New York State has managed not only to control its outbreak since the devastation of the early spring, but also to contain it for far longer than even top officials expected. Now, as other places struggle to beat back a resurgence and cases climb in former success-story states like California and Rhode…
Southeast Asia detects mutated coronavirus strain sweeping the world
Bloomberg reports: Southeast Asia is facing a strain of the new coronavirus that the Philippines, which faces the region’s largest outbreak, is studying to see whether the mutation makes it more infectious. The strain, earlier seen in other parts of the world and called D614G, was found in a Malaysian cluster of 45 cases that started from someone who returned from India and breached his 14-day home quarantine. The Philippines detected the strain among random Covid-19 samples in the largest…
How to use ventilation and air filtration to prevent the spread of coronavirus indoors
Open windows are the easiest way to ventilate a room. Justin Paget / Digital Vision via Getty Images By Shelly Miller, University of Colorado Boulder The vast majority of SARS-CoV-2 transmission occurs indoors, most of it from the inhalation of airborne particles that contain the coronavirus. The best way to prevent the virus from spreading in a home or business would be to simply keep infected people away. But this is hard to do when an estimated 40% of cases…